Transport for London’s ‘Private hire proposals’ make me mad

Many of you will have seen this already, but Transport for London’s ‘Private hire proposals’ are so loaded in favour of protected interests and against consumer choice that I’m cross enough to have a moan here. Hopefully this post will make a small contribution to the debate and increase the chances of a sensible outcome.

There are 25 proposals in total. The five below seem to do nothing for the consumer and are only explainable as an attempt to make Uber less attractive. If they go through 10m+ Londoners will have less choice, wait longer for their cabs and probably pay higher prices so that a small number of taxi drivers can be better off.

How can that be right?

Operators “must provide booking confirmation details to the passenger at least five minutes prior to the journey” – should be a matter of consumer choice, and who wants this when you can have a car in 2-3 minutes?

Companies “must not show vehicles being available for immediate hire either visibly or virtually via an app” – hard to see how this hurts anybody, and again should be a matter of consumer choice

Operators “must offer a facility to pre-book up to seven days in advance” – consumers should be able to decide whether they value seven day advance bookings

Drivers may only work for one operator at a time – doesn’t seem very fair on drivers to restrict their employment options

There should be “controls on ridesharing in public vehicles” – targets UberPool, a ridesharing service